How to Get a Great
Idea The guests had arrived, and the wine was warm. Once
again, I’d forgotten to refrigerate it. "Don’t worry," a friend said, "I can
chill it for you fight away." Five minutes later she emerged
from the kitchen with the wine perfectly cooled. Asked to reveal her secret, she
said, "Easy. I poured the wine in a plastic bag and then dipped it in ice water.
After a few minutes the wine was cold. The hard part was getting it back into
bottle. I couldn’t find a funnel (漏斗), so I made a cone with wax
paper." My guests applauded. "How wonderful if we could all be
that clever," one remarked. A decade of research has convinced
me we can. What separates the average person from Edison, Picasso or even
Shakespeare isn’t creative capacity--it’s the ability to use that capacity by
encouraging creative impulses and then acting upon them. Most of us seldom
achieve our creative potential. I think I know why, and I can help unlock the
reservoir of ideas hiding within every one of us. One puzzle
I’ve watched students deal with is retrieving a Ping-Pong ball that has fallen
to the bottom of a sealed, vertical drainpipe. The tools that they can use are
either too short to reach the ball or too wide to fit into the pipe, which is
also too narrow to reach into by hand. At last some students make the
connection: drainpipe= water=floating. They pour water down the hole, and the
ball floats to the top. This and many other experiments suggest
concrete ways of increasing creativity in all of us. Here are the best
techniques. Capture the fleeting. A
good idea is like a rabbit. It runs by so fast that sometimes you see only its
ears or tail. To capture it, you must be ready. Creative people are always ready
to act, and that may ha the only difference between us and them.
Poet Amy Lowell wrote of the urgency with which she captured new ideas,
"Whatever 1 am doing, I lay it aside and attend to the arriving poem," she
wrote. Like many other writers, Lowell sought paper and pencil when she saw a
good idea coming. I enter new ideas into a pocket computer. Anything--even a
napkin--win do. In a letter to a friend in 1821, Ludwig van
Beethoven talked about how he thought of a beautiful tune while dozing in
carriage. "But scarcely did I awake when away flew the tune," he wrote, "and I
could not recall any part of it.’ Fortunately--for Beethoven and for us--the
next day in the same carriage, the tune came back to him, and this time he
captured it in writing. When a good idea comes your way, write
it down--on your arm if necessary. Not every idea will have value, of course.
The point is to capture first and evaluate them later. Daydream. Surrealist Dali used to lie on a sofa,
holding a spoon. Just as he began to fall asleep. Dali would drop the spoon onto
a plate on the floor. The sound shocked him awake, and he would immediately
sketch the images he had seen in his mind in that fertile world of
semi-sleep. Everyone experiences this strange state, and
everyone can take advantage of it. Try Dali’s trick, or just allow yourself to
daydream. For many, the "three b’s"--bed, bath and bus--are productive. There,
and anywhere else you can be with your thoughts undisturbed, you’ll find that
ideas emerging freely. Seek
challenges. When you’re stuck behind a locked door, every behavior
that’s ever gotten you free turns up quickly: you may push or pull on the knob,
bang the door--even shout for help. Scientists call the rehappening of old
behaviors in a challenging situation resurgence. The more behaviors that
reappear, the greater the number of possible interconnections, and the more
likely that new ideas will occur. Try inviting friends and
business associations from different areas of your life to a party. Bring people
of two or three generations together. This will get you thinking in new
ways. Edwin Land, one of America’s most prolific inventors, said
that the idea that led to his invention of the Polaroid camera came from his
three-year-old daughter. On a visit to Santa Fe in 1943, she asked why she
couldn’t see the picture he had just taken. During the next hour, as Land walked
around Santa Fe, all he had learned about chemistry came together, with amazing
results. Said Land, "The camera and the film became clear to me. In my mind they
were so real that I spent several hours describing them." Put
new and crazy items--like kid’s toys--on your desk. Turn pictures upside down or
sideways. The more detersive the stimulations we receive, the more rapidly the
mind produces new ideas. Expand your
world. Many discoveries in sciences, engineering and the arts mix
ideas from different fields. Consider "The Two-String Problem". Two widely
separated strings hang from a ceiling. Even though you can’t reach both at once,
is it possible to tie their ends together, using only a pair of
pliers One college student found the solution almost
immediately. He tied the pliers to one string and set it in motion like a
pendulum (钟摆). As it swung back and forth, he walked quickly to the other string
and drew it as far forward as it would reach. Then he caught the swinging string
when it passed near him and tied the two ends. Asked how he had
solved the problem, the student explained he had just come from a physics class
on pendulum motion. What he had learned in one context transferred to a
completely different one. This principle works outside the lab
as well. To enhance your creativity, learn something new. If you’re a banker,
take up tap dancing. If you’re a nurse, try a course in mythology. Read a book
on a subject you know little about. Change your daily newspaper. The new will
interconnect with the old in novel and potentially fascinating ways. Becoming
more creative is really just a matter of paying attention to that endless flow
of ideas you produce, and learning to capture and act upon the new that’s within
you. The author believes that those who have creative capacity are usually great figures.